


The Unofficial Mascot

by everythingmurky



Series: Grumpy Scot and His Cat [3]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 06:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9806585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingmurky/pseuds/everythingmurky
Summary: Hardy and Miller need to pick a case to work. Somehow, that's the cat's job.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So... um... this is the result of my neurosis getting the better of me (it should be obvious by now that I am a very insecure writer who tends to think her stuff is always wrong somehow) and making me question my choices in Child of Time and want to hide forever and not finish things. 
> 
> I figured something small might help counteract that some. I hope. It was hard to find something to write, and so I ended up falling back on this series, which is probably not the wisest choice, but I needed something.

* * *

“You're bloody kidding me.”

Hardy didn't even look at her, leaving Ellie to stand there, arms over her chest, rolling her eyes. She wasn't sure why she was still coming here, why she drove so bloody far out of her way on a regular basis—certainly wasn't to see him, meeting of the former detectives club or not.

“Hardy,” she said, watching him set the folders across the table, lining them up and making sure they were neat, almost like he had that disorder, obsessive compulsive. “Hardy, no. Absolutely not.”

“You were the one that called him the mascot.”

“Yes,” Ellie agreed, unable to deny it, “but that doesn't mean I want him picking our case.”

Hardy grunted. “It's not like they're paying you for it, Miller.”

She glared at him. “It's not about getting paid, is it? We have jobs for that. This is for... us. For them. For those people who lost someone and still don't have justice.”

“There you go,” he muttered, “making it sound all noble. You do know we're not noble, don't you?”

Ellie shook her head. “Speak for yourself, wanker.”

He ignored her, rising and looking around the room. “Detective Sergeant? Where is that thing? Always underfoot, always a problem, but when he could actually be useful, he's nowhere to be seen.”

“The cat is not choosing our case,” Ellie repeated. She looked at the folders. “Did you even read them? Because if you didn't—”

“Of course I read them,” he snapped. “The hell do you think I want the cat to pick?”

Ellie thought of the cases and how each of them seemed more terrible than the last, every one of them an unsolved murder, sometimes two, and she grimaced. She didn't know how to pick, either. How did you choose something like that?

“He always comes when you make tea,” Ellie reminded Hardy, and he nodded, heading into the kitchen.

* * *

“You think Daisy'll want her cat when she moves out?”

Hardy grimaced. He didn't want to think about that. One, his daughter was almost all grown up. Two, he was not admitting he was at all fond of the cat. He wasn't. It was a cat, a bloody obnoxious one at that, and he didn't need or want it. He just was used to having the thing around now, since it had been with him for almost half a year now, much longer than Daisy had been able to spend with Tess wanting her home all the time.

“Don't know.”

Miller went to the sink, dumping out the old water from the kettle and refilling it. “Get the cups.”

“Excuse me?”

“You're taller, and you put them where I can't bloody reach,” she said. “Get the cups.”

He did, setting them on the counter. She put the kettle on the stove and lit the burner, starting the water heating. “Now it's you in the way, mucking things up. Was supposed to be the cat.”

She gave him a small smile. “Do I irk you, Hardy?”

He gave her a look, shaking his head as he started across the kitchen for the tea. He had just crossed toward the cupboard when something darted between his legs and he lost his balance, stumbling into the center island.

He rubbed his side and looked down at the cat. “Is that the way of it, then?”

DS turned his head, blinking, before flopping down on the floor and sticking his belly up in the air. Miller laughed, kneeling down to give him a scratch.

“Don't encourage him.”

* * *

“Somehow, I had a feeling he'd choose that one,” Ellie said, looking at the cat with a sigh. His tail was thumping the folder, almost like he was upset by it. The tail just kept thwacking the table, and she reached over to pick him up to make it stop.

“Problem, Miller?”

“It's just... It's almost like Lisa and Pippa all over again,” she said, looking over at him. “Can you handle that?”

“It's not the same.”

Ellie shook her head. God, he was such a knob sometimes. “Two girls. Friends, not cousins, but it doesn't make much difference. Both of them missing, only one body found. This is like your worst nightmare coming back. And you want to do this? When we're not even being paid?

DS squirmed out of her arms, jumping down to run over to Hardy. The cat circled around his feet, pawing at his trousers. He looked down at it.

“Stop that.”

The cat mewed.

“Oh, please. Both of you. Almost soppy over it. One would think you cared,” Hardy muttered, and Ellie swallowed, not sure how to respond to that. “And since we know you don't, pick up that file.”

She did. “We need a wall.”

He pointed to the one across from her, and she nodded, setting to work as he sat down, cat at his side.


End file.
